A grooved construction lumber element is described for constructing lumber structures such as portions of a house frame, building walls, guard rails for decking or verandas and the like structures wherein lumber pieces are secured at repeat spaced intervals.
In the construction of lumber structures, such as wood building structures, it is necessary to erect walls, flooring, roofing wherein load bearing elements such as joists, studs, trusses, are secured at substantially equidistantly spaced intervals. When constructing a wall with wood framing studs it is necessary to secure the studs to a top surface of a lower plate at spaced intervals. These spaced intervals are usually measured using a measuring tape and a pencil mark is made on the plate at the repeat intervals. These measurements are not always accurate and subject to human errors as the construction worker must remember ascending numbers of a predetermined spaced intervals and often makes a human error and a stud may be secured at the wrong position and this is detected later on when it is time to cover the framing with covering sheet material of predetermined size.
Another disadvantage in the construction of building structures wherein lumber elements must be spaced at regular intervals is that the butt end of the studs are usually secured on a side surface of a bottom or top plate member by nails. Because often construction lumber is not totally dry the studs will warp longitudinally as they slowly dry and this results in an irregular wall surface.
A still further disadvantage in the construction of building structures wherein lumber elements must be secured at regular spaced intervals is that such construction requires skill labor and it can be said to be time-consuming due to the fact that many measurements need to be taken not to make errors and when errors occur it is time-consuming to rectify them. It is also time-consuming to groove lumber pieces to interconnect butt ends of studs in a base plate. It is also time-consuming to construct guard railings where rail posts need to be secured at regular spaced intervals without error. For these reasons, it is costly to construct these types of structures.
It is a feature of the present invention to provide a grooved construction lumber element for use in constructing lumber structures and which substantially overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages of the prior art.
Another feature of the present invention is to provide a grooved construction lumber element for use in the construction of building structures and which is comprised by a straight lumber piece provided with a plurality of spacing grooves disposed in at least one surface thereof whereby to permit lumber elements to be secured thereto at predetermined spaced intervals.
Another feature of the present invention is to provide a grooved construction lumber element for use in constructing building structures and comprised of a straight lumber piece having a plurality of spacing grooves disposed in at least one surface thereof and which permits the butt end of lumber element to be connected in the grooves and wherein the grooves substantially arrest the problem of distortion of the lumber element.
Another feature of the present invention is to provide a grooved construction element for use in constructing building structures and wherein such structures may be constructed by unskilled labor and permits near flawless erection of such building structures.
According to the above features, from a broad aspect, the present invention provides a grooved construction lumber element for use in constructing lumber structures. The construction lumber element is comprised of a straight lumber piece having a plurality of spacing grooves disposed in at least one surface of the lumber piece. The spacing grooves have a predetermined depth and are configured to receive therein an end portion of an associated further lumber element to construct a specific structure. At least some of the spacing grooves are disposed at common spaced intervals.